After 43 years owner operator Peter Smith hands over the Starlight Cinema Taupō 12 May, 2022 
By 
Rachel CanningTaupō & Tūrangi Weekender

The year was 1979 and a young Peter Smith took on the job as a projectionist at the local cinema.
Two years later, the owner sold Peter his third of the shares and after making an inquiry to the managing director, he was offered the remaining shares.
Peter says the key to his success was "just being there and being a people person", for 43 years!
"Offering a good service is key, and having a good selection of movies to show. Also, the staff have been critical to the success of the cinema."
Throughout that time, Peter has employed a lot of young people, many keep in touch and he enjoys seeing them make a success of their lives. He also has a core of senior staff, one has been with him for 19 years and two staff members have been at the cinema for 11 years.
The Starlight Cinema is locally owned and independent and Peter says he has never been tempted to sell out to one of the big movie chains.
"It wouldn't be the same if the cinema was owned by a franchise. They would operate it in a different way."
He is staunchly community-minded and the Starlight Cinema Taupō has sponsored the annual fireworks and laser extravaganza, which in turn donates tens of thousands of dollars back into the community, the annual hobby show, the local harriers club, women's golf and the community patrol, to name a few.

"The local cinema is the community. They support me and I support them."
Peter is going to help the new owners out for another couple of months and is looking forward to going on holiday with his wife Robyn when he finally gets to retire.
Related articlesTammy Prince says she spent many happy hours of her childhood in the Starlight Cinema.

On Friday last week, Tammy and husband Charlie Prince bought the Starlight Cinema Centre from Peter Smith, who Tammy has known since she was 5.
When she was a child, her father Tom Clelland owned the business Xtra Clean which had the cleaning contract at the cinema.
"I worked in Dad's company in the holidays. The cinema would be my babysitter. In 1993 when The Lion King came out, I watched it 19 times over 14 days. I saw Titanic 22 times, I love movies."
Tom has sold his cleaning business now, but still keeps the carpet clean at the cinema. Tammy says Peter was more than an employer to her family.
"My dad was a single dad and so was Peter and they bonded. It wasn't like they were just co-workers."
Tammy's other childhood love was golf, moving to Texas when she was 18 on a golf scholarship to Oklahoma State University. She and Texas-born husband Charlie both have business degrees and Charlie is a big fan of superhero movies.
For a time they were both professional golfers but they didn't like the travel. During their last few years in Texas, Tammy raised their three young children while Charlie worked as a land and contracts analyst for an oil company.
"Charlie said to me 'what do you want to do?' And I said 'I want to own a movie theatre, it's so familiar to me'. We were going to either start one or buy one."
Fast forwards a few years, and the Prince family arrived in New Zealand on March 24, 2020, one day before the borders closed due to a State of National Emergency declared over the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the past few weeks, Tammy and Charlie have been learning the ropes at the Starlight Cinema, an immediate challenge being to get through this year "and make sure the business makes financial sense".
Tammy says if she and Charlie build a new cinema, people can expect something fancy but welcoming and cosy, and it will have a decent bar.
"We would keep the blockbusters but expand the boutique side. It will be a cinema designed for functions, such as birthdays."
Tammy says that dad Tom is now their primary babysitter.
"He is very excited [we have bought the cinema] and we have all been a bit terrified."

Wairarapa celebrates film-making with a local connection. At the Regent Masterton, May 2022

​A million dollar restoration project for Embassy Theatre Wellington’s landmark cinema, Courtenay Place’s Embassy Theatre, opened in 1924, is to receive in excess of a million dollars as a loan to the Embassy Theatre Trust.
 Former Wellington Mayor, Dame Kerry Prendergast and her husband, property developer and former city councillor, Rex Nicholls, are loaning the funds to restore the entrance to the treasured theatre.
The Category 1 heritage listed Embassy Theatre, has had a wonderful history providing a wide variety of entertainment in the capital city for close on 100 years. The theatre has played host to many film and arts festivals, international movie premieres, and as recent as the early 2000s, with Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which brought 120,000 people out to line Courtenay Place.
Lower Hutt lawyer and New Zealand arts stalwart, the late Bill Sheat, who passed away in January last year, was a long time chairman of the Embassy Theatre Trust, of which Rex Nicholls has also been a trustee. Bill and his trustee colleagues put much energy into saving and restoring the Embassy Theatre over many years.
The Embassy Theatre Trust was formed in 1995 to save and restore the building. The Trust, with the help of Wellington City Council, eventually purchased the property in 1997.
Between 1998 and 2003, the Embassy was refurbished with parts of the building being sympathetically restored, and the auditorium modernised to cater for the demands of current theatre goers.
Bill Sheat had his funeral service in the Embassy Theatre in January last year and, in recognition of Bill’s deep interest in musicals and acting, was a real theatrical show by all accounts. For the several hundreds who attended Bill’s service, including me, it was a wonderful tribute to an outstanding arts leader.
Rex Nicholls is very clear on their new objective. “We are lending this money to the Trust to rebuild the entrance foyer the way it was back in the 1920s and we want to put a big digital ad up on top of the building to help pay rent for the theatre.” Just a further step in a long programme of restoration work for the Embassy.
The Embassy Theatre is a special feature looking down Courtenay Place, attracting huge numbers of people travelling through the area, and by night an entertainment drawcard for thousands of city residents and visitors.
- David Watt
Renovations underway in May 2022. This will be a large electronic billboard, spelling out EMBASSY. 

A message received today  from Whanganui...Confluence Cinema <cinema@confluence.kiwi>
Dear Confluence customers and supporters,

You’re receiving this email as one of our wonderful customers and supporters over the years who have helped grow Confluence from the little trickle of an idea Melita & Kevin had about 7 years ago, into the enjoyable community focused social enterprise it became. No matter if your journey with us was brief or just planned to begin, or if you were a regular and much cherished visitor, perhaps even with a favourite seat in the cinema - you are all very special to us and the memories of what we made together will remain for a lifetime. Thank you.

This email is to let you know that Confluence is closing all of its services in Whanganui at the end of April.

The reasons for closing are all unrelated to the Covid pandemic mitigations, but instead actually due to an ongoing, and unfortunately now untenable, situation with our new location in The Backhouse.

The Tokoroa (Timber Town)  cinema has closed, after failing to find a buyer..

One the feature films The Travelling Cinema Company is screening as part of its Drive-In Movie Season at the ASB outdoor venue during April 2022.  A great venture for we never have had movie drive-ins in New Zealand (except for occasional one-off events)--largely because drie-ins were stymied by the old duopoly of Kerridge/Amalgamated back last century.
Go to https://travellingcinema.nz/events/showgrounds/ for full details of a great range of titles, starting with American Graffiti on Friday April 1st, as well as where you park etc... 

​https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/462505/vista-group-s-losses-improve-by-83-percent-to-9-point-9m

​Regent Cinema Re-opening Press Release
STARTS
New Zealand’s longest operating provincial Cinema in Dannevirke is set to re-open this year
15 January 2022
Dannevirke's Regent Cinema, opened in 1919 as the Arcadia Picture Theatre, has been pivotal in the role that movies play in the education, entertainment and inspiration of communities such as Dannevirke.
A ‘Boosted’ funding campaign has started with the goal to raise $4,000 to establish a small museum display as the first step of getting this historic theatre back in operation and donations can be made at https://boosted.org.nz/projects/moviefest.
The theatre has a category two heritage building status, in recognition of its historical and cultural significance and holds the record for being New Zealand's only provincial theatre to have remained open continuously, apart from short periods for repair and refurbishment, until its closure in 2012.
The owner's daughters, Stephanie and Alison Amboy, who as children grew up in the apartment above this cinema and have been actively endeavouring to reopen it since 2018, have now been joined by the MovieFest Charitable Trust in their endeavour.
Graeme Moffatt who is a trustee said, “The trust was set up in 2005 with the objective of organising amateur short movie competitions for schools and amateur movie-makers. This was also along with providing appropriate venues and facilities for films to be screened and filmmaking courses to be held and to assist in the public education of artistic taste.”
Graeme, who is also a documentary filmmaker and Managing Director of Capital Video Productions in Wellington, is currently distributing the iconic 1970 film ‘This is New Zealand’, went on to say, “In the process of visiting Hawkes Bay venues, I discovered that the owners of the Regent Cinema in Dannevirke were intending to re-open their theatre after being closed for the past 10 years.”
Stephanie Amboy told Mr Moffatt, "I'm very excited because as a child I grew up around this cinema so I'm determined to see it re-open, and I'm treating this project as my little baby and can't wait until we're showing movies again.”
Stephanie continued saying that it was sad the Regent had been closed, and since reopening the Regent Cafe in the same building, she had people coming in and reminiscing about going to the cinema. 
As a consequence, the trust recently entered into an agreement with the owner of the Regent Cinema, to take over the management and maintenance services, and have appointed three additional trustees from Dannevirke to assist in this effort.
This agreement includes getting it back operational, and to facilitate this we have obtained a digital projector, that will initially enable the screening of a range of films, when the cinema has been bought up to an adequate standard.
Mr Moffatt also stated, “the aim is to take one step at a time with the first one being to set up a small museum, which will include a small auditorium, to showcase the history of the cinema and the production of films during the past 103 years, that the theatre has been in existence.”
In order to get underway as soon as they can and prior to the cinema re-opening, the trust has begun a funding campaign to raise $4,000 to produce some display panels along with the installation of suitable display lighting, and to acquire a small digital projector along with procuring a small number of theatre seats.
The museum display will highlight the history of the Regent cinema and will have an emphasis on the role of the New Zealand National Film Unit, that was acquired by the government from Filmcraft in 1936, eventually being sold to Television New Zealand in 1990, and then Peter Jackson in the late 1990's and becoming Park Road Post.
The crowd funding platform ‘Boosted’ is the means of generating the funds needed and donations can be made at https://boosted.org.nz/preview/moviefest.


ENDS


Contact info:
Name: Graeme Moffatt 
Email: graeme@capitalvideo.co.nz
Phone: 027 660 3094